Radhames Guzman
English 101.0800
11/12/2010
Part I of Research Paper #2: Proposal and Preliminary Thesis
The topic of my research paper is going to talk about “the double bind of masculinity”. This topic comes from an article called, “Gentlemen or Beast? The Double Bind of Masculinity” by Susan Bordo. A double bind is a predicament in communication which involves an individual with two or more conflicting messages, with one message contradicting the other.
The main aspect of this article was to explain that men need to have both the “gentlemen” and “beast” features to function. My thesis is “Do men need to have this double bind of masculinity to function properly in society or is it okay for men to choose one side of personality?” It said to believe that men who are mostly gentlemen-like are seemed to be more feminine while men who are mostly beast-like have no class and are too much aggressive which makes them unattractive to some people. I believe that men need to have this double bind of masculinity in order to fit in with society. Men should have the gentlemen aspect to show class, emotion, and respect along with the beast aspect to play sports, learn to defend your family, and learn to stick up for yourself.
I will conduct my research by looking up scholar academic articles online. I will focus on men masculinities with personalities of “gentlemen” and “beast” aspects. I will look up sources to provide evidence on how men who are completely gentlemen react and men who are completely beastly react and how people view them in society. I will access these sources using the academic searching located on the LaGuardia Library Website, along with Google Scholar.
This is an interesting topic to research and hopefully our class discussion on Monday, Nov.15- we will look more closely at Bordo's chapter in relation to Lara's article, will help you brainstorm this further. Of course, this is not to say you don't have a clear idea about your project outline in your proposal. I think a good place to look for sources, is Bordo's book, The Male Body, from which I photocopied this chapter. You can request a copy of this book to be delivered to LAGCC library. Hostos, Kingsborough, Bronx and Brooklyn College libraries have copies of Bordo's book, the 1999 edition; Queens College has the 2000 edition from which I photocopied the chapter for our class. You should request the book today and hopefully it will arrive in LAGCC library early next week. The call number for the book is HQ1090 .B67 1999 or HQ1090 .B67 2000. So your thesis is for now a question which you will try to answer- is the double bind of masculinity detrimental to masculinity, making men struggle with an internal conflict or does it actually allow men to develop alternatives by combining the two sides of the gentleman/beast dichotomy?
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